Duda retains presidency
WARSAW: Poland’s incumbent Andrzej Duda has won the presidential election, results from over 99% of polling stations show, with remaining uncounted votes unlikely to change the final outcome, the National Electoral Commission said yesterday.
Duda, an ally of Poland’s ruling nationalists, is expected to help the Law and Justice (PiS) party continue its reforms of the judiciary, which have been criticised by the European Union, and generous social spending programmes.
According to the latest results, Duda received 51.21% of the vote, while opposition candidate Rafal Trzaskowski got 48.79% of the vote.
The difference amounted to about 500,000 votes.
‘‘I don’t want to speak on behalf of the campaign staff, but I think that this difference is large enough that we have to accept the result,’’ Grzegorz Schetyna, the former head of
Poland’s opposition Civic Platform (PO) grouping and member of parliament told private broadcaster TVN24.
There was a near record turnout by voters, reported at 68.12% by the commission.
The Opposition had earlier said it was collecting information about what it said were voting irregularities. It also claimed some overseas voters did not get their mailin ballots in time.
Duda, a devout believer, had painted himself as a defender of Catholic values and of the Government's generous social benefit programmes that have transformed life for many, especially in the poorer rural regions of the country.
He appeared conciliatory yesterday.
‘‘If anyone was offended by anything I did or said in the last five years, not just during the campaign, please accept my apology,’’ he told supporters in Pultusk, a small town north of the capital.
The election was the first time all voters had a choice to cast ballots by mail, a change in rules necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic.
For many religious conservatives in Poland, Trzaskowski came to represent the threats facing traditional values when he pledged to introduce education about LGBT rights in the city’s schools.
The archbishop of Krakow, Marek Jedraszewski, told worshippers in the city of Czestochowa on Sunday that Poland faced a ‘‘lethal danger’’ from ideologies that sought to undermine the traditional family structure, and corrupt children.
Trzaskowski said he was seeking a more tolerant Poland. — Reuters